


On Melancholy Hill

by bucketofbarnes



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Depression, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 13:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketofbarnes/pseuds/bucketofbarnes
Summary: The next thing he knew there was a hand on his arm and a voice in his ear. He didn't know what they were saying. He didn't care.Or: A look into the aftermath of the rocket explosion.





	On Melancholy Hill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueNeutrino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNeutrino/gifts).



The water felt like concrete when he hit it. The impact took his breath away and for a moment he drifted. It was only when his lungs began to scream that he swam for the surface. He burst up with a gasp, treading water frantically even as his limbs ached. All he could see was flames. The flames that had surrounded him as he fell. That had killed Riot and Drake. That had killed- He cut himself off, refusing to let his mind go there. He couldn't right now. Looking around desperately his eyes found the shore some distance away. Time failed to exist for him as he swam towards it. All he knew was the water and the desperate need to escape it.

He pulled himself out of the water with a groan and collapsed onto the ground. He lay there on the shore for what felt like hours. Every bone in his body aching as he shivered against the hard ground. He could hear the sound of debris from the rocket still hitting the water, hear the roaring of the flames that it left behind.

He gazed into those cursed flames, drifting in and out of consciousness. At the back of his mind, he heard faint sirens. The next thing he knew there was a hand on his arm and a voice in his ear. He didn't know what they were saying. He didn't care.

He slipped away again and woke to the ground moving beneath him. He opened his eyes and his gaze met the top of an ambulance, an EMT hovering over him. He could see their mouth moving but all he could hear was the ringing in his ears.

The next time he woke, it was to a familiar face. Dan. Dan the Man. The Doctor was stood over him, speaking to someone else. Dan looked down at him in concern as Eddie shifted on the bed.

Dan was nice. Way nicer than Eddie deserved.

His hearing came back gradually, until he could just about hear Dan. The Doctor sounded like he was far away, but Eddie could hear him.

“Eddie, can you hear me?” He asked.

“Y-Yeah.” Eddie choked out, his voice hoarse.

Someone moved on his left and he flinched back, hissing as his body protested against the movement. He felt Dan's hand come to rest on his shoulder.

“Eddie, it's fine. You're okay, you're safe.” He said with a reassuring smile. “You're in the hospital. We're going to take care of you.”

Eddie remembered his last visits here, how the MRI had made him feel like he was being torn apart cell by cell. It was the worst pain he'd ever felt.

Eddie didn't want to be here anymore.

He shifted his arms beneath him and began to push himself up, ignoring the protests of everyone in the room. He shoved off the hands attempting to keep him down as he stood, until one of them grabbed him. He swung around towards the person, remembering Drake's thugs dragging him through the forest to his death. His arm connected with the person and he scrambled away, his back hitting the wall. The nurse that he had hit was lying on the floor, a hand clutched over his bleeding nose.

Eddie was too panicked to feel any guilt over what he had done. He was too busy making his way towards the door. His limbs weren't working with him, his legs wobbling with every step. But he had to get out.

He didn't get the chance, instead feeling more hands grab him before he felt a needle slip beneath his skin and everything slipped away.

* * *

 Eddie woke slowly, everything swimming around him as he blinked up at the ceiling. He stared at the panels as he tried to remember what happened, and winced as he remembered the nurse. They must have sedated him after that.

“Eddie?” A soft voice beside him said. He looked over and saw Anne sat on the chair next to the bed. She was dressed in a hoodie and a pair of jeans, hair pulled up into a messy ponytail and makeup smudged around her red eyes. She smiled at him as he looked over, relief all over her face. “How are you feeling?”

“I don't know.” He wasn't lying. He didn't know. He had been in pain before, his body aching from the strain it had been put through over the last few days. Now, he just felt numb. More exhausted than he had ever felt in his life.

“Do you want me to call someone?” Anne asked, already halfway out of the chair.

“No!” Eddie reached forward and snatched her arm to stop her. “No, I'm fine. I promise.”

Anne clearly didn't buy it but she sat back down. She instead reached forward to readjust the blankets that had been messed up when he had rushed to grab her.

Eddie relaxed again, sinking into the pillows and curling up under the warm blankets. Anne's hand reached for his and held it in a gentle grasp. She didn't say anything else, she didn't need to. She had been bonded with Venom too, even if it had been for a shorter time. Eddie dozed off to the feeling of her thumb rubbing comforting circles on the back of his hand.

* * *

Eddie walked down the old familiar hallway with heavy steps, before coming to stand before his door. Or what was left of it. He tore off the police tape stuck on the front of it, leaving it lying on the ground where it fell.

The ground crunched beneath his shoes as he stepped on the shattered remains of plates and glasses. Lifting the door, ignoring the pain in his still healing ribs, he stood it up in the doorway, pulling the table over to keep it propped up. Not safe, but who was going to be breaking in to the shattered remains of his apartment anytime soon.

He turned to look around said apartment, taking in the broken glasses and plates scattered across the ground, the torn up sofa, the missing bricks from the back wall, the dented fridge, the bullet holes. This place was a mess.

He stepped into his kitchen, hoping that perhaps there was at least a beer left in the fridge. His shoe skidded on something on the ground and he looked down. His brain stopped, and he stared dumbly. He bent down to pick it up and lifted it up to the light. A tater tot.

A god damn, burned, mouldy tater tot.

Something in him broke. He started to laugh at this stupid little thing before he sank down to the kitchen floor with a sob, crying his eyes out in a pile of burned tater tots and the shattered remnants of his life.

* * *

He barely left his bed for days after that, only getting up to use the bathroom or grab food before climbing back beneath the blankets. He knew that most of the calls would be from Anne & Dan. They would be worrying, because they were good people who even cared about a piece of shit like him.

He didn't want to worry them, but he just couldn't make himself get up. Not when he had this massive hole in his chest that nothing could fill.

The phone rang again and he moaned, yanking a pillow out from under him and jamming it over his head, trying to block out the sound. Why couldn't they just leave him alone?

**_Why don't you just turn your phone off?_ **

Eddie jerked up with a gasp, throwing the pillow off of his head and scrambling up, getting tangled in his blankets in the process. He was going insane. That was the only answer. Venom was dead. He was dead and gone. Burned up because he saved Eddie. Gave his life to save some stupid reporter who wasn't worth it anyway.

**_Not true. You are worth it._ **

Eddie dropped his head into his hands, shaking where he sat. It wasn't real. It _couldn't_ be real.

**_But it is._ **

A black tendril slowly grew out of his shoulder, swirling to turn into a familiar form. Eddie looked up to Venom's face staring at him, eyes glowing eerily in the darkness.

**_Still think you're insane?_ **

Eddie couldn't find words for a moment. He breath seemed to freeze in his lungs as the wave of emotion shut him down. All he could do was stare. Venom was _alive._

“Y-You're alive.” He gasped. “How?”

**_A part of me survived in you Eddie._ ** The symbiote said. **_But I was too weak to appear. We needed rest. Both of us._ **

Eddie fell back to sit on the bed, wanting nothing more than to bury his head under his pillow and sob. But if he did that he wouldn’t be able to see Venom. He was so scared that if he took his eyes off of him for one second, the symbiote would disappear again. He couldn’t go through that again.

Venom heard every one of these thoughts, and he hissed through his teeth. He pushed forward until he was eye to eye with Eddie, their face inches apart. More tendrils grew out of Eddie to circle around him. It felt like getting hugged by an Octopus. It was the best feeling ever.

**_I’m not going anywhere Eddie. I told you. You’re mine now._ **

A few days ago, that might have scared him. Hell it _did_ scare him the first time Venom had appeared and told him that he was inside his head. But now? He had lived through things he thought belonged in the realms of science fiction. He had been tasered, beaten, shot at and almost killed. What had terrified him before was now the most reassuring thing he could have heard. Venom was here. He was alive. Everything would be okay.

Eddie lay back on the bed, closing his eyes against the feeling of Venom's tendrils circling around him in a tight hug. He dozed lightly, just enjoying the quiet and the feeling of the Symbiote wrapped around him in the world’s biggest hug. “Hey Venom?”

**_Yes, Eddie?_ **

“Promise that you won’t disappear again?”

_**I promise.**_ The tendrils squeezed him tightly. _**I won't let you go again.**_ **We** _ **are Venom.**_  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at: bucketofbarnes.tumblr.com


End file.
